Guest Post: Is there a PI reputation crisis?

Personal Injury law gets very little prestige and respect in the academic community. If you look at the best Universities, rarely do you see a professor who specializes in personal injury law or a program dedicated to learning its specializations.

The relegation of PI to the lowest rank of legal practice seems unfair, unearned and outdated. Especially in the current age of corporate corruption, one would think that the lawyers who fight for those who are taken advantage or and both physically and emotionally damaged would be considered slightly more noble than, say private equity lawyers or bankruptcy attorneys.

Hollywood, of all places, seems to be the only place where personal injury law is seen as heroic, with films such as Erin Brockovitch or A Civil Action, standing up for the less fortunate. But about as often as the film industry paints PI lawyers as saviors, they are portrayed as ambulance chasers and bottom feeders.

Do you know of any universities or firms trying to offer training in PI? Are there ways that, we as a group can elevate the public’s view of PI law?”

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9 Responses

24 years ago (when I was a law lecturer) I set up and ran a Post-~Graduate Diploma in Personal Injury Litigation, which was well attended. It ran for several years and was then dropped by the university (I had then gone to the Bar but continued to be involved for several years). I think similar initiatives run but they are piecemeal. It is a pity because I am sure that, with proper support, good if

But isn’t this really a problem for academics? Is it academia that is not living in the “real world”? I think reforming academia is too large a task. Shouldn’t we be focussing our attention on Post-Graduate/professional qualifications? The course I taught was in three modules: liability; damages; procedure. I am sure that a modern course would have to cover practice management and costs in addition. I am not sure that there are many universities that could cover this (we solved the problem at the time by having a panel of practitioners drawn from claimants, defendants and a judge and then having academic oversight).

APIL/CPIL have tried to introduce qualifications but I am not sure it has every really taken off.

At the time there was a real thirst among practitioners to study the subject and become qualified (Post-Graduate Certificate in Personal Injury Litigation). Even with all that has passed since I suspect there is still a market in place.

The problem seems to be that our Government doesn’t want to pay for the legal costs and only “rich, well to do people” should be able to afford to take people to court, as they have a divine right. The Government has other things to spend our taxes on and it feels that we should all take our punishment (meted out by God?), and stop whining and trying to get money out of other people to assuage our misery, (In the same way the Government gets money out of us, with perfect “legality”. (Of course the Government defines what Legality is.) But what do you expect?………..All you lawyers had the chance to challenge this at an earlier date but you couldn’t be bothered, because it didn’t concern you………And now it does because you feel that you’re losing money over it…….And many brilliant “would be” lawyers will be working for McDonalds instead of contributing to the “greatness” of this realm as they should be. (Just a hint of sarcasm there.) You people make the laws so do something about it and stop whining! P.S. Listening to some of the people at the bottom of the pile sometimes helps people in your profession to realise what’s really going on here..Getit?.

One of the problems with the teaching of subjects like PI in the academic environment is that students will already have ‘done’ tort in the core and therefore it will always be a niche subject if a further option is made available. The same problem exits with many core subjects.
It needs an academic with a strong research profile in the area to drive forward an optional course in a niche. I’m not sure there are that many with that strong research interest.

Academics always have to ‘sell’ their Modules to students, who have a free choice. But if the profession, as employers, want students to study particular subjects they’ll have to either change their selection practices, to influence demand, or dirty their hands and invest in academia itself to encourage supply.

Fair point. Some of the commercial firms have invested in a “commercial” LPC. If there was money to invest in PI (which I suspect there isn’t) it may well be aimed at the vocational stage rather than academic.

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